Latest news with #ThePortal
RTÉ News
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Carlow schoolkids make their own radio shows for Cruinniú na nÓg
RTÉjr Radio have teamed up with a creative collective in Carlow to bring the drama for Cruinniú na nÓg this Saturday. Cruinniú na nÓg 2025, Ireland's national day of free creativity for children and young people takes place on Saturday, June 7. Muine Bheag Arts worked with students from St Brigid's NS, Muine Bheag in Carlow to develop, produce and record two radio plays, The Portal (2024) and The Curse of CountVlas (2025). Over the past two years they've led a series of hands-on workshops as part of Cruinniú na nÓg in which the students wrote the material for the plays, acted out the roles of all the characters, created foley sounds and learned how to use recording equipment. The Portal (2024) The Portal recounts the tale of the Murphy twins, Mince and Marmalade, along with their associate Benice, who travel through the portal in Dublin to New York on a mission to save Ireland from darkness. The Portal will play out on RTÉjr Radio at 10am this Saturday, with a repeat at 2pm. The Curse of Count Vlas (2025) The Curse of Count Vlas tells the story of four 6th class friends who embark on a spooky adventure to rescue their town from a greedy property developer, Count Vlas, who has put a strange curse on Grandad Noel's farm. The Curse of Count Vlas will play at 11am with a repeat at 3pm. DJ For A Day Plus, be sure to tune in at 4pm to hear the team behind Count Vlas select some of their favourite tunes to celebrate Cruinniú na nÓg on DJ for a Day. Muine Bheag Arts is an artist-run organisation based in Carlow that engages with the local context to present projects in the public realm. The programme includes exhibitions, workshops, events, residencies, publishing and radio broadcasts. The organisation adopts a collaborative, welcoming and experimental approach and aims to foster dialogue between artists, audiences, community and place. Find our more here - This project is supported by Cruinniú na nÓg, Carlow Arts Office and Creative Ireland Carlow.
Scotsman
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Lau's Martin Green on Keli, his new National Theatre of Scotland show: 'I fell in love with brass bands'
Telling the story of a tenor horn player from a fictional Central Belt mining village who heads to London for a brass band competition, Keli has been a complicated balancing act for its creator Martin Green, who both wrote the script and composed the score. Interview by Mark Fisher Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... What happens when a composer becomes a playwright? Take the case of Martin Green. He is the accordionist best known for his work with Lau, the nu-folk band he plays in with Kris Drever and Aidan O'Rourke. He is also something of a multi-hyphenate. In the 2016 Edinburgh International Festival, he brought together musicians and stop-motion animators to share stories of migration in Flit. During lockdown, he released The Portal, a richly crafted podcast for which he wrote and narrated a time-spanning detective story. Later, for BBC Radio 4, he made Dancers At Dawn, which made unexpected connections between Morris dancing and rave culture. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Now, for the National Theatre of Scotland and his own Lepus Productions, he is writer and composer of Keli, a play about a tenor horn player from a fictional Central Belt mining village who heads to London for a brass band competition. According to Liberty Black, who plays the title role, one thing you get with a musician for a playwright is extraordinarily precise feedback. Liberty Black in rehearsals for Keli | Julie Howden 'He said to me, 'I've rewritten some of these lines because you're funny with consonants,'' says the Clydebank actor, who is in her final year at the Royal Conservatoire Of Scotland. 'I asked him what he meant and he said, 'Well, some people are vowel funny and you're funny with consonants.' I would not have known that about myself!' Bryony Shanahan, the director, observes something else. She has no trouble describing Keli, but when she tries to define its genre, she is stumped. 'This is not a play that has sections of brass music in between the scenes,' she says, sitting in the Glasgow headquarters of the National Theatre of Scotland, her poodle lying obediently on her lap. 'It is an underscore. It's sort of like a musical without songs. Or is it like an opera? I don't know! The music is a personality on its own. It is a twin to telling the story.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Martin Green and Bryony Shanahan in rehearsals for Keli | Julie Howden What Shanahan does know is the emotive power of the music in a show that features a live brass band, either West Lothian's Whitburn Band or Fife's Kingdom Brass. 'There's something about 25 people playing,' she says. 'Last week, I was really trying to keep it together. It made me suddenly want to cry and I wasn't sure exactly why. It's a certain chord that gets struck or a peak they hit musically and it is this massive emotional thing.' Green himself is uncertain where one job ends and the other begins. In the first week of rehearsals, he felt like a playwright because the focus was on the text; by the second week, he felt more like a music maker. 'It certainly doesn't feel like we've got a blueprint,' he says. 'Even if we wanted to phone it in by numbers, it would be hard.' The play started to take shape at the same time as Green's three-part BBC Radio 4 documentary series, Banding: Love, Spit and Valve Oil. Living in Newtongrange, Green became intrigued by a Midlothian landscape shaped by coal fields and a popular culture that found expression in brass bands. Seduced by the mournful sound, and impressed by the musicians' dedication to be the best, he determined to compose his own brass scores. 'I fell in love with the music but also just brass bands as a community-music phenomenon,' says Green, who programmed the Whitburn Band alongside Lau and Joan As Police Woman at Leith Theatre in 2018. 'Radio 4 were the first people to bite, but the drama had started well before the completion of the documentary.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Writing an original score – released last year as Split The Air – meant not only learning the characteristics of each instrument, but also going beyond pastiche and resisting the pull of Hovis-advert cosiness. 'It's so powerful,' he says. 'As soon as you hear one tenor horn, you start floating off. I spent a long time trying to make the pieces of music not too nostalgic. The dialogue helps because it can put a bit of lemon juice in the sugar. Liberty said something really interesting, which is that the horn is a smooth and legato instrument, but Keli's speech patterns are staccato and percussive.' The story he tells is about a 17-year-old musician juggling with her final year at college, a job in Scotmid, a competition at the Royal Albert Hall and caring for her housebound mother. It is determinedly modern, even if the past hangs heavy over a post-industrial landscape that, 40 years on, is still haunted by the miners' strike. Liberty Black in rehearsals for Keli | Julie Howden Making her professional debut, Black is drawing on the local knowledge of tenor horn player Andrew McMillan, a fellow final-year student who plays with the Whitburn Band. Despite being born decades after the strike, she understands a legacy that affects her generation even now. 'In Scotland, there is a hatred of Thatcher and everything that she represents that is almost genetic,' she says. 'Before I had a concept of who she was, I had heard the phrase 'Margaret Thatcher, the milk snatcher'. I don't have any familial relations to the mines, but I have a lot of familial relations to industry and the seeds of individualism that were planted at that point are still affecting communities today. The play explores what is the modern young person's relationship to that.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Shanahan warms to the play's vision of communal endeavour, one that recalls the camaraderie of Same Team: A Street Soccer Story, the Traverse Theatre hit for which she received a best-director nomination in the CATS awards. 'I love the analogy that being a brass bander is like being involved in a sport,' she says. 'It doesn't matter if it's football or music, it's wonderful when people can come and be together. It can be tough as well. The play does not romanticise: the level that these bands are playing at is really serious and people can feel the pressure. But at its heart, it declares that music and coming together is good for us and should be protected – and it's quite easy for me to get behind that.'
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Philadelphia Portal powered back on in LOVE Park after vandalism, copper theft
The Brief The Portal is powering back on in LOVE Park Friday after it was shut down in January due to damage and vandalism. Organizers will soon be moving the Portal to a new location within the city. The new location has yet to be announced. PHILADELPHIA - Philadelphia's Portal is powered back up on Friday after it was shut down due to damage and vandalism. The Portal will soon move to a new location within the city. The attraction has been in the city for five months, and connects visitors to a live feed Dublin, Ireland; Vilnius, Lithuania; and Lublin, Poland. The Portal will power back up at 8:30 a..m. and you can watch it live on Good Day Philadelphia on FOX 29 and FOX LOCAL. The backstory The Portal was tested in LOVE Park again on Thursday as crews worked to repair copper wires that were stolen in recent weeks. The screen was also vandalized multiple times. Despite the damage and ongoing repairs, Portal organizers told FOX 29 they planned to turn the portal back on even though the screen was still damaged. Although the view may be distorted, officials say the screen can still operate with damaged glass. Organizers say the Portal was designed to withstand 100 mph winds, hurricanes, storms, and floods, so damaged glass won't stop it from operating. The Portal has been powered off since early January, when the damage and vandalism first began. What's next The Portal will move to a new location in Philadelphia in a couple of weeks, and should have a new piece of glass in no time. So, why is the damaged Portal turning back on in LOVE Park in the meantime? Officials say it's all about resilience. "Just like the rest of Philadelphians, we're resilient. You can knock us down, but we'll get back up and keep fighting," said Grover Washington of The Portal Organization. It's still unclear where the Portal is moving, but officials have assured Philadelphians that it will stay in the city. "There are three potential locations," said Joe Callahan, director of the Portals Organization. "Those three locations are within the city—public property with one and the other two are private areas with public access within the city. Can you say where the three are? I'd rather not because right now they're wanting to liaison themselves for keeping the portal on their property, and it'll be in that location for a year."
BBC News
23-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Teens' pet photos shortlisted for RSPCA photography award
Budding teen photographers from across the South East are vying to win this year's RSPCA Young Photographer People's Choice for by the public, the entries are among 15 images in line for the top trophy and they include a hungry carp, a dancing dog, a camera-shy cat and a canine staring at its own Wiseman and Iceni Newcombe, both aged 15, from Kent, Eliza Harvey-Keightley, 14, from Surrey, and West Sussex's Grace Marshall, 18, are all Forsyth, RSPCA photographer and judge, called this year's selection "brilliant images from some passionate and talented young people". The People's Choice Award is part of the prestigious RSPCA Young Photographer Awards, with winner will be picked from submissions to the Mobile Phone and Devices, Pet Personalities and Pet Portraits year the charity encourages children and young people to take photos of animals in a bid to become closer to nature and inspire the next generation. Eliza Harvey-Keightley, from Farnham, was picked for her image called Behind the Leaves, which features her cat Luna hiding in some undergrowth, while The Portal by Iceni Newcombe, from Gravesend, shows her dog staring in a Wiseman, from Rochester, took a picture entitled Hungry Fish while feeding carp with his father, and Grace Marshall, from Chichester, managed to catch her dog Robin in mid-jump. Mr Forsyth said: "This year's photos are fantastic and really varied."There are some sweet and funny pictures of pets showing off their incredible personalities, and we urge the public to not only enjoy them but to vote for their favourite."Voting closes on Wednesday, with the winner to be announced on RSPCA's social media channels the next day.
Washington Post
20-03-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
Transfers rule March Madness. See how your team's roster compares.
The Post analyzed the careers of 10,000 college basketball players to see how transfers are increasingly shaping the sport. If you've ignored college basketball since last March … well, you might be a little confused this week. That men's player who seemed perfect for his team — the jersey colors made sense, the coach and him seemed like real buddies? He plays for a bigger program now. And that women's player you took to? She also transferred, no matter how many times she called your alma mater her dream school. This is college basketball in 2025. Player movement is rampant. Players staying put can feel like a surprise. No program is spared from the chaos of The Portal. To understand the phenomenon and its impact, look no further than the men's and women's NCAA tournament fields. On the men's side, 53 percent of all rotation players previously logged minutes at another Division I school, according to a Washington Post analysis. Roughly one-third of these key contributors — the top eight players in total minutes on each roster — played for another D-I program just last season. On the women's side, nearly 40 percent of key players previously played for another D-I team — a big jump from before 2021, when the NCAA stopped requiring athletes to sit out a year after transferring. This increase has plateaued somewhat in the past three years, whereas the number of transfers in men's hoops continues to rise. That's mostly because there's more name, image and likeness (NIL) money being thrown around for male players. Still, transfers have also had a major influence on the women's game. Look up your favorite 2025 tournament team Men Auburn Auburn men's team Prev. D-I schools 0 1 2 3 Johni Broome Miles Kelly Denver Jones Chad Baker-Mazara Chaney Johnson Tahaad Pettiford Dylan Cardwell Chris Moore 6,789 minutes in previous seasons at other D-I schools 6,933 minutes in previous seasons at this school 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 0 5 10 15K The Post collected the rosters of every men's and women's NCAA tournament team since 2010, then analyzed the careers of roughly 10,000 players using statistics logged on the website Sports Reference. The Post found that key contributors for 2025 tournament teams previously played for another D-I school more than three times as often as their peers a decade ago, when just 15 percent of men's tournament rotation players and 9 percent of women's had recorded minutes at a different D-I program. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Auburn, the No. 1 overall seed in the men's field, has four players in its top eight who've logged minutes at another D-I school. And that doesn't include another key contributor who began his career at a D-II program. (Sports Reference only maintains statistics for D-I teams, so transfers from lower levels, including junior colleges, are not included in The Post's analysis.) The trend extends up and down the men's bracket. Alabama, a No. 2 seed, has five transfers in its top eight. Bryant, a No. 15 seed, has seven. Not only are there more players in this year's tournament field who have transferred than have spent their entire careers at a single school, some are on their third or even fourth D-I team. In 2025, transfers rule the men's game Prev. D-I schools 0 1 2 3 Sort by Number of transfers Most minutes Fewer minutes Memphis 5 seed Kentucky 3 McNeese 12 Grand Canyon 13 Louisville 8 Texas 11 High Point 13 Bryant 15 Norfolk State 16 Texas Tech 3 Vanderbilt 10 Oklahoma 9 St. John's 2 Mississippi 6 Utah State 10 Xavier 11 Iowa State 3 Michigan 5 Missouri 6 VCU 11 Show more In the women's tournament, some of the biggest stars — such as Paige Bueckers at Connecticut and Flau'jae Johnson at LSU — have only played for one team. But D-I transfers contribute at nearly every school. Only five of the 68 tournament teams don't have one in their rotations. Most women's tournament teams have multiple transfers Prev. D-I schools 0 1 2 3 Sort by Number of transfers Most minutes Fewer minutes TCU 2 seed Arkansas State 15 Grand Canyon 13 Maryland 4 Mississippi 5 Oregon 10 Oklahoma State 7 Alabama 5 Florida Gulf Coast 14 West Virginia 6 Michigan State 7 San Diego State 14 North Carolina 3 Tennessee 5 Illinois 8 Baylor 4 Mississippi State 9 LSU 3 Kansas State 5 California 8 Show more For three straight years — Duke in 2015, Villanova in 2016 and North Carolina in 2017 — men's teams won national titles without a single transfer among their key players. The women's champions around that time had similar roster constructions, with development at a single school far more common than it is today. By contrast, many of this year's top contenders are powered by transfers, especially on the men's side. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement The reasons for the transfer boom amount to a perfect storm. In the summer of 2021, the NCAA permitted athletes to profit off their NIL, which quickly led to boosters paying de facto salaries to football and men's basketball players. The NCAA eased transfer restrictions that year, too, allowing athletes to switch schools once without sitting for a year. Then last April, even those rules were eliminated, meaning players could transfer wherever, whenever, without the consequence of stalling their athletic careers. Not every transfer decision is about money, especially on a women's side that attracts far less interest from boosters. Players transfer for more minutes. They transfer because their coaches leave and they want to follow them or start fresh somewhere else. They transfer to escape a bad fit. They transfer, in some cases, simply because they can, because they need a reset and that itch is easier to scratch than ever. But money is a major factor in many cases. For players who won't play professionally, transferring — or the threat of transferring — is often the best way to cash in on their talents. And for players who will play professionally, there will always be coaches trying to poach them. The number of transfers on tournament teams has skyrocketed Men's teams 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 Women's teams 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 Not all transfers are new to their teams. Some joined their programs years ago. But when you include freshmen, about half of rotation players in the men's field hadn't logged any minutes at their school before this season. Of course, there are exceptions, including Purdue (a No. 4 seed) and Marquette (a No. 7 seed). Neither team has a single player in its eight-man rotation who has transferred at any point in his college career. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement And then there are the most extreme cases of the Portal Effect. At St. John's, six of Rick Pitino's top eight players in minutes are transfers. He recently said on the Pardon My Take podcast that he is not recruiting any high school players for next season, feeling he can't win big with them in the transfer era. At Kentucky, the entire rotation joined the team this past offseason, after coach John Calipari left for Arkansas. Together, the Wildcats' top eight players entered this season with plenty of experience: close to 18,000 combined minutes. It was just all at other D-I schools. Kentucky 2025 men's team Prev. D-I schools 0 1 2 3 Otega Oweh Koby Brea Andrew Carr Amari Williams Jaxson Robinson Lamont Butler Brandon Garrison Ansley Almonor 17,726 minutes in previous seasons at other D-I schools 0 minutes in previous seasons at this school 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 0 5 10 15K While constant player movement potentially has hurt the popularity of men's basketball, having at least some roster continuity has helped the women's game grow. Entering the season, the eight-man rotations of men's tournament teams had, on average, roughly 4,400 combined minutes on the court at their current schools. A decade ago, that number was 6,800. On the women's side, the decrease has been less stark — from 7,600 then to 6,400 now. Together, the Kentucky Wildcats' top eight players entered this season with plenty of experience: close to 18,000 combined minutes. It was just all at other D-I schools. (Steve Roberts/Imagn Images) The connection between familiarity and fandom is easy to see. Take Iowa's women's Final Four team from a year ago: Yes, the hype was mostly due to Caitlin Clark. The rotation, though, entered the season with 13,000 combined minutes at the school; no men's rotation in the past three NCAA tournaments has had that much combined experience at a program. Unlike with many men's rosters, fans had watched the whole Iowa team grow over time. In this year's tournament, most of the top women's teams have just one or two rotation players who previously played elsewhere, including title contenders South Carolina and Connecticut (one each). UCLA, however, has four, including standout center Lauren Betts, who began her career at Stanford. South Carolina 2025 women's team Prev. D-I schools 0 1 2 3 Te-Hina Paopao Raven Johnson Bree Hall Joyce Edwards Chloe Kitts Tessa Johnson MiLaysia Fulwiley Sania Feagin 2,431 minutes in previous seasons at other D-I schools 7,578 minutes in previous seasons at this school 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 0 5 10 15K Coaches and programs spend a ton of time fundraising, both to retain players and win the bidding war for transfers. That process, the endless loop of pleading and negotiating, contributed to why Tony Bennett, Mike Krzyzewski and other prominent coaches have retired in recent years, saying they couldn't juggle these demands with the already grueling job of running a program. As soon as this summer, schools could be permitted to pay athletes directly for the first time. In anticipation of that rule change, schools are already trying to slow the roster churn by inking athletes to multiyear contracts, according to multiple agents and coaches who have negotiated deals for the next academic year. It's just unclear if any effort to roll back player movement will be successful. For now, though, no matter the seeds, no matter the matchup, transfers will have a massive influence on March Madness. And with the transfer portal opening again next week, the lucky schools will spend the month juggling game prep with roster management, their seasons and future success all on the line. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement
